No Witness But the Moon(71)

She got him a glass of water. He sipped it and tried to recount all the salient details he could think of about the shooting. Time. Date. Place. Number of shots. Wounds to the victim. Whatever he’d told Isadora Jenkins would probably work for Ellen Cantor. He left out last night’s fistfight and his lovely little vomiting session this morning. Then he sat back, looked at his watch, and pretended not to at the same time. Forty minutes to go and he’d be finished.

Cantor had a yellow legal pad in front of her but she didn’t write down a single word he’d said. Not one. Jesus. He interviewed people all the time and he wrote down everything.

Vega shifted his weight on the leather couch. He jangled his keys and change in his pocket. He felt like a kid in the principal’s office. Thirty-seven minutes to go.

“I’d like you to call me ‘Ellen.’ May I call you ‘Jimmy’?”

Vega shrugged. “Sure. Whatever.”

Cantor leaned forward. “You don’t want to be here, do you?”

“No offense, ma’am—Ellen. But my ex is a psychologist and I never saw any of this stuff working for her or me or anyone else.”

“By ‘stuff,’ what do you mean?”

“You know—” He stretched to avoid her gaze. “Having people sit around navel-gazing and talking about the time they didn’t get what they wanted for their birthday when they were ten.”

“I agree.”

“You do?” Good. This would be faster than he thought.

“Which is why I would never put you through that. Tell me, how are you eating?”

“How am I eating?” The question surprised him. “Okay, I guess.”

“Did you have breakfast this morning?”

“A bagel. But uh”—he jiggled his legs—“I kinda threw it up on the way over.”

“Is that happening a lot?”

“No. But—I’m not really hungry most of the time.”

“How about concentration?”

“I don’t know . . . I’m sort of like a goldfish right now. I can’t think about anything for more than two seconds.”

“So you feel restless and antsy a lot?”

“Yeah—like I’ve got about ten cups of coffee in me.”

“How about sleep?”

“What’s that?” He threw out the comment lightly but one of the things he was hoping Cantor would give him today was Ambien. He really, really needed a good night’s sleep, and if he had to induce it chemically—well then, so be it. “I can’t sleep for more than maybe an hour and a half at a stretch. Maybe you can like, give me a prescription?”

“Pills are a short-term solution at best,” said Cantor. “I’m not a big believer in them.”

“Oh.” So much for pills.

“Are you talking to friends?”

Vega tossed off a laugh. “More like avoiding them.” “Why is that?”

“I’m not allowed to talk about the shooting. And all their shit—stuff, sorry—it sort of gets under my skin. I’ve been yelling at my teenage daughter a lot and she doesn’t deserve it. Everything sets me off.”

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

“I did. We’re sort of on the outs at the moment. She runs an immigrant center—”

“Oh my.”

“Yeah, ‘oh my’ is right,” said Vega. “This whole situation has hurt her professionally. She’s hearing stuff that makes me sound like a mafia hit man.”

“Such as?”

“There’s this witness. A neighbor who claims I executed the suspect—shot him at point-blank range. My girlfriend wants me to tell her it’s not true. But I can’t.”

“Is it true?”

“Of course not!” His vehemence seemed to startle Cantor. Vega realized belatedly that the woman wouldn’t know what was true and what wasn’t.

“You can’t tell your girlfriend what you just told me?” asked Cantor.

“It’s not that simple,” Vega explained. “If I tell her what’s not true, then, in effect, I’m also telling her what is. My lawyer ordered me not to say anything. I’m already in trouble for some stupid comments I made at the scene. I can’t risk another mistake.”

“Have you told her that?”

“It wouldn’t make any difference.”

“Why is that?”

“Because she’s gotta deliver this keynote address to a bunch of immigrant groups this evening at Fordham University. She’s supposed to go up on stage and call for the district attorney to convene a grand jury against me.”

“And how do you feel about that?”

“How do you think I feel? Like she’s knifing me in the back.” Vega heard the anger in his voice and shook his head. “She’s got the clout to make it happen, too.”

“You must feel deeply betrayed.”

Vega sighed. “I do, of course. But in another way, I sort of get it. If you asked me to protect someone who did something very wrong, no matter how much I loved them, I couldn’t go against my conscience. That’s sort of what I’m asking of her.”

“And when you tell her that, what does she say?”